Antoine Pinay

Antoine Pinay

Antoine Pinay at the Geneva Summit (1955)
Prime Minister of France
In office
8 March 1952 – 8 January 1953
Preceded by Edgar Faure
Succeeded by René Mayer
Personal details
Born 30 December 1891
Saint-Symphorien-sur-Coise, Rhône, France
Died 13 December 1994(1994-12-13) (aged 102)
Saint-Chamond, Loire, France
Political party Democratic Alliance
(1936-1938)
Democratic and Radical Union
(1938-1940)
Independent Radicals
(1940-1949)
Independent
(1940-1949)
CNIP
(1949-1958)
Union for the New Republic
(1958-1968)

Antoine Pinay (French pronunciation: ​[ɑ̃twan piˈnɛ]; 30 December 1891 – 13 December 1994) was a French conservative politician. He served as Prime Minister of France in 1952.

Life

As a young man, Pinay fought in World War I and injured his arm so that it was paralyzed for the rest of his life.

After the war, he managed a small business and in 1929 he was elected mayor of Saint-Chamond, Loire.[1]

He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1936, running as an independent candidate opposed to the Popular Front. In 1938 he was elected to the Senate, where he joined the Independent Radicals. On 10 July 1940 he voted to give the Cabinet presided over by Marshal Philippe Pétain authority to draw up a new constitution, effectively ending the French Third Republic and establishing Vichy France. In 1941, Antoine Pinay was appointed to the Conseil National of the Vichy Regime. He was also awarded the Order of the Francisque.[2] During the Occupation, Antoine Pinay remained mayor of Saint-Chamond, although he had been urged by General Georges to move to Algiers, in order to better protect the residents of this city. Yet, trying to associate him with Vichy is inappropriate : he resigned from the Conseil National within a few months and refused any official position with the Vichy regime, such as the préfecture de l'Hérault offered by Laval. Besides, he gave several hundreds of identity papers to help Jews and Résistance members flee from France to Algiers or Switzerland. An official commission in 1946 recognized his long lasting opposition to the Nazis and the help he gave to the Résistance and let him totally free of any charge.

In 1944 he was first placed on house arrest, and stripped of his right to be candidate to an election on 5 September 1945. After the intervention of René Cassin, the vice-president of the Conseil d'État, who pointed to his fierce opposition to the German occupation, his citizen rights were restored on 5 October 1945. On 2 June 1946 he could successfully run for election to the Assemblée Constituante as a moderate candidate.[3]

He helped create a conservative party, the National Center of Independents and Peasants (CNIP). He acquired the reputation as one of France's more spirited politicians and in 1952 became Prime Minister by virtue of being the most popular elected CNIP official. His ministry was seen as the return of the "classical right", discredited since the Liberation. He stabilized the finances of the French nation and the French currency.

In 1955, he was one of the participants of the Messina Conference, which would lead to the Treaty of Rome in 1957.

During the May 1958 crisis precipitated by the Algerian war, he supported Charles de Gaulle's return to power and approved of the Fifth Republic's constitution. He served as Finance Minister until 1960. In 1973, he was made "Médiateur de la République" (Ombudsman) by President Georges Pompidou.[4]

Having died at age of 102, he is the third longest lived national head of government or head of state in history, behind only Chau Sen Cocsal Chhum and Celâl Bayar. He died 17 days before his 103rd birthday, and was buried in Saint-Symphorien-sur-Coise. [5]

Pinay's Ministry, 8 March 1952 – 8 January 1953

Changes

Political offices
Preceded by
Maurice Bourgès-Maunoury		 Minister of Public Works, Transport, and Tourism
1950–1952 		Succeeded by
André Morice
Preceded by
Edgar Faure		 Prime Minister of France
1952–1953 		Succeeded by
René Mayer
Preceded by
Robert Buron		 Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs
1952–1953 		Succeeded by
Maurice Bourgès-Maunoury
Preceded by
Edgar Faure		 Minister of Foreign Affairs
1955–1956 		Succeeded by
Christian Pineau
Preceded by
Edgar Faure		 Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs
1958–1960 		Succeeded by
Wilfrid Baumgartner
Preceded by
Édouard Bonnefous		 interim Minister of Public Works, Transport, and Tourism
1958 		Succeeded by
Robert Buron

References

  1. ↑ The New York Times 14 December 1994
  2. ↑ Antoine Pinay, ou l’empreinte d’un mythe Archived 16 December 2007 at the Wayback Machine. L'Humanité, 14 December 1994
  3. ↑ Biography on the Assemblée Nationale Web site (Covers only Pinay's carrier from 1936 to 1958)
  4. ↑ TIME Magazine, 19 Feb. 1973.
  5. ↑ http://www.landrucimetieres.fr/spip/spip.php?article2173

Further reading

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